1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic camera device comprising a flash device, and especially relates to an electronic camera device to which an efficiency of the charge of the flash device is achieved.
2. Description of the Background Art
Recently, an electronic camera, which records a subject image obtained by imaging a subject with an imaging device such as CCD in a semiconductor memory etc. as an electronic information, is actively developed. This kind of camera has a display device such as a liquid crystal panel to display a through image (real-time image) in addition to a usual viewfinder. There is also an electronic camera having a flash device.
In the electronic camera comprising the flash device, it is important how to charge the flash device efficiently from the battery, which has the finite electric power. In general, when the flash device is charged, other processing is stopped and only the flash device is charged. Concretely, the flash device is charged immediately after the power supply is turned on or immediately after photographing. In this case, other processing cannot be carried out while the flash device is charged. Originally, it is possible to photograph without using the flash device even if the flash device is uncharged. However, since the display of the through image to the liquid crystal panel has stopped while charging the flash device, too, it is impossible to photograph while seeing the liquid crystal panel. And, when the charging time of the flash device is long, it is more inconvenient since the photograph cannot be performed.
In a conventional electronic camera as mentioned above, when the flash device is charged, since only the processing of the charge is performed by stopping other processing, other processing cannot be carried out. Therefore, it is inconvenient because the photograph cannot be carried out when the charging time of the flash device is long.
The attempt at effective use of the electric power of the battery having the finite electric power is proposed. In the first proposal, the performance of an electronic equipment is managed so as not to exceed the consumption electric power by obtaining the consumption electric power which can be supplied during the set time (see Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. 7-44281 which is incorporated by reference). In the second proposal, when the remainder of the battery falls below a predetermined value, the display on the monitor and the charge of the capacitor for the flash are not executed at the same time (see Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. 10-80069 which is incorporated by reference). In the second proposal, it is proposed that the display on the monitor and the charge of the capacitor are performed at the same time, when the remainder of the battery is more than a predetermined value.
In each proposal as mentioned above, the control method is changed according to the remainder of the battery. However, it becomes inconvenient in case of the photograph like an electronic camera when the entire processing speed of the electronic equipment decreases uniformly like the first proposal. In a case that there are two or more processing which require the high-power like the second proposal, it is not easy to say that the use efficiency of the electric power will be used to its maximum in a timesharing method that two or more processing are not executed simultaneously. Moreover, the entire processing speed decreases, since electrical supply is limited when two or more processing are executed at the same time. Therefore, the influence on the photograph due to the decrease at the processing speed is large.